Coincidence?
See if you can identify a thread through all of this:
Sewage Saturates Sadr City as Billions Fail to Reconstruct Iraq (Bloomberg)
Almost six years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, sewers in the sprawling Baghdad slum have become the most odorous example of how things don’t get done in Iraq. While the U.S. has been able to pacify once-roiled areas, electricity is still spotty, drinking water is scarce and health care is limited — even though America has spent billions of dollars on reconstruction and the Iraqi government has taken in hundreds of millions of dollars in oil revenue.
Raw sewage has become something of an emblem for Sadr City, home to 2 million of Baghdad’s 5 million inhabitants. It has swamped streets since at least the early 1990s, flowing freely even as Saddam built himself eight Taj Mahal-scale palace compounds.
The sludge seeped on after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, when American warriors-turned-plumbers tried repeatedly to unclog the works. In 2004, troops pulled a dead horse from one sewer, according to a report on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Web site.
I know we should expect better than Sadr City, but so far, I cannot say we have seen it.
I am starting to get the sneaking suspicion that the same people who planned the war in Iraq and the occupancy are now hard at work, planning for the Federal credit crisis bailout . . .
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November 25th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
“Raw sewage”, billions, probably trillions wasted? Hhhhmm, now where have I heard that story before?
There’s no way that any entity (even the government) can be THIS incompetent, can they? I’m not generally a conspiracy-theorist, but I’m starting to think like one……
November 25th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Baghdad = Wherever black people live in the U.S.
Same contempt. Same racism. Same denial. Same decay.
East Germany 1976. Redux.
The CheneyBush-Republican Right of the U.S. wishes for a feudalistic, gated WhiteState where they are separated from the darker masses by Blackwater security forces, ie. about what the Afrikaaners had hoped to develop in South Africa and Namibia before DeKlerk realized that Mandela and Buthelezzi might get over their differences.
Cheney always respected Botha and Thatcher.
November 25th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
And meanwhile, banks who take our money, but can’t afford to lend any of it here, are using it for overseas acquisitions. The question “Is Kashkari A Chump?” rears it’s head once again.
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/bank-of-america-raises-stake-in-chinese-bank/
November 25th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Sack the bankers and financiers and hire some engineers. Most of the problems in the financial world like ones in the physical world are ones can be overcome with a little planning the right motivation and the correct education. Don’t ask a banker how to fix anything he or she will just wonder how much he can be paid for something he doesn’t know how to do.
The right motivation being maintaining the integrity of the banking system not seeing it as a path to instant riches. The right education being how to control dynamic unstable systems and something else like how to prevent or mitigate progressive failures.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
It reminds me of a saying one of my economic professors would say: “95% of all the people that you meet are incompetent and chances are the other 5% are too.” But, Thursday is Turkey Day! So, let’s eat.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
BR, for give me if this was already brought up-you were quoted on rush limbaugh today, sorry.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
When the unemployment rate in this country gets to 8%, it’s going to be ever more difficult to justify spending $10B per month in Iraq.
Maybe we should just tell the Iranians that they can take over as long as they fix the sewer system.
November 26th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Speaking of dead horses….
Do you folks ever read the news or just skip right to the business pages? Do the words “Sadr City” really not ring a bell?
Oh, and yes, the bailout stinks. Rah-rah on that part.
November 26th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Barry,
Thanks for asking this question. It is the correct one.
The provision of working urban septic systems is de rigeur for any conqueror.
2,000 years since the Romans, it should be like the complimentary continental breakfast.
“At least the toilets flush,” the vanquished IberianCelts told reporters.
November 26th, 2008 at 1:00 am
Coincidence…. or Heller’s principle?
@DL “When the unemployment rate in this country gets to 8%, it’s going to be ever more difficult to justify spending $10B per month in Iraq.”
Justify and compared to which bailout(s)????? Trillions and counting…..Don’t under estimate apathy in the US
@Mannwich – sewage is the KEY word….it all stinks!
November 26th, 2008 at 4:58 am
Comparing Wall Street to a sewar in Baghdad is just unfair.
To Baghdad I mean.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:56 am
That’s why people shouldn’t plan economies…regulated free markets should. Our Fed, for 25 years, tried to eliminate recessions by printing way too much money and deregulating the system…we had a very long party, but the bill is now due and it is the mother of all tabs.
As for a bottom, I have not seen one perma-bull turn bearish yet..Kneale, Luskin, Farrell, Bowyer, Froehlich, Holland…plus most fund managers CNBC trots out see this as a generational buy. Also, still waiting for short interest to jump before we are even remotely close to a bottom. Furthermore, housing has another 35% at least to fall nationwide.